Day 29, Year 9: Monday with SJ&O
Date: Monday, November 18, 2013
Weather: Rain Early, Then Clearing with Temps in the 60’s
Location: Home of Bruce and Jane Woodin, West Falmouth, MA
Monday is our ‘day off.’ Normally Jed stays home with Jonah and Ollie so we have no child care responsibilities. Jonah goes to school on Tuesdays, Thursday, and Fridays, but not on Mondays. But today Jed had to leave by 7 am to drive to Boston and Heather had to be on the air in Woods Hole at 9 am, so Mark and I left early to go to Heather and Jed’s. We put the final touches on getting boys ready to head out the door and then put them in the car to take Sam to school and to then take Mark to the Hematology/Oncology Center for his second chemo treatment. Ollie, Jonah, and I then went to Windbird so I could pick up some things that we forgot to take with us to our new temporary home and then we drove to our new temporary home to drop off these things. By this time the ugly early morning rains had ended so I wanted to make sure Siggy (the dog that lives in our new temporary home) had a chance to go out without the element of rain. Jonah and Ollie loved the stop at Bruce and Jane’s. Ollie followed Siggy around and Jonah found good places to locate the little and the big Legos we brought from the boat. Jonah decided we needed things to play with when at Bruce and Jane’s so I caved and let him bring the Legos from the boat. Then it was time for us to head home so we could have some outside play time before lunch and returning to pick-up Mark. Jonah wanted to go biking, so he convinced Ollie to put on his helmet and both went ‘biking’ on a nearby side street that has very little traffic. Both boys enjoyed their ‘biking’ time and we even got to meet Ariel, the newest addition to the neighborhood. She is a week and a half old and was out for a walk in the wonderfully mild weather with her mother, Dominque. We continued to enjoy the afternoon after returning from picking up Granddad.
Mark is handling the chemo treatments well. On the day of treatment, his energy level is totally drained, but he has read enough to know that succumbing to the desire to retreat is not the right action. Exercising is the right move, so he played baseball with Jonah and Ollie this afternoon and then we all walked to Sam’s school to pick him up. Somehow Mondays have ended up to be a Dunkin Donuts afternoon, so we stopped on the way home (DD is directly in our walking path) and had a donut frenzy—not healthy, but fun. On the healthy side, I had a pasture-raised organic stewing chicken burbling away all day to make Miracle Broth and I continue to search for healthy drinks for Mark. He doesn’t drink alcohol while undergoing treatment, so there is a constant search for interesting drinks that are healthy. He loves berry smoothies and tonight he is trying an almond milk and banana chocolate smoothie. He has become addicted to homemade ginger ale (sparkling water and sugarless ginger syrup which I make by boiling pieces of ginger in water for a couple of hours). But the easiest to make and best liked new drink is Rooibos Tea. I cleaned out our tea cabinet the other day and found a huge stash of Rooibos (roy-boss) from South Africa. This is a tea made from the red leaves of a bush that only grows near Cape Town. Mark hates coffee and black tea and has recently found green tea to give him indigestion. When I brewed him a cup of Rooibos, he loved it. I researched it on the internet and found that its professed healing powers are many and that it should be safe for anyone undergoing chemo if their cancer is not estrogen-based. I had him check with his oncologist today, and she agreed that Rooibos is safe for Mark. But I chuckle when people ask me what Mark’s doctors suggest he eat or drink. They have no idea. They can check the internet just like I do when we ask specific questions, but they make no recommendations. The main drug in Mark’s regimen is FU (stands for a chemical compound too complicated to spell). One of the main side-effects of this drug is mouth sores. The other night as we were perusing the internet, we found on a Mayo Clinic site that sucking on chipped ice during the initial hour of FU chemo treatment can lessen the chance of mouth sores. Today Mark took ice chips with him and as his infusion started, he was sucking away. His oncologist came in to talk with him and when she noticed that he was sucking on the ice chips, she noted that this can help ward off the mouth sores. Now why in the world had she not recommended this to him during his first six months of treatment? The answer is that doctors in this country, even in 2013, do not deal with healthy practices. They really only deal with chemical-based treatment for illnesses. So we are left on our own to figure out what to eat and drink in order to be healthy. And it is not an easy thing to figure out!
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| 131118 Day 29 Cape Cod, USA–Monday with SJ&O |
